How humility turns into hubris

Published 2025-01-02

At the beginning of your career, you have a lot of ideas, and most of them are bad. The thing is, your superiors expect you to have bad ideas. Each idea you throw out is always double checked diligently, since everyone has the assumption that it probably isn’t a good idea.

Then, you get promoted. Now you are the one that is double checking ideas, but you still have superiors. At this stage your ideas are usually correct, and you don’t hear “you’re wrong” as often as you once did. On the other hand, you say “you’re wrong” a lot more than you once did. Not because you’re arrogant or mean, but because just like yours once were, your subordinates ideas usually really are wrong.

At this stage there is still a balance between the amount of “you’re wrong” you say to subordinates and you hear from supervisors. A humble person will rightly assume that sometimes they’re right, and sometimes they’re wrong. When they hear a bad idea, they speak their mind. When they say a bad idea, they expect someone else to speak their mind as well. When your superior has an idea that you disagree with, you might push back, but ultimately you (rightly) trust their judgement.

Finally, you don’t have a superior. Your whole life, the amount of times you heard “you’re wrong” has been decreasing. And the amount of times you say “you’re wrong” have been increasing. At this moment, though, the amount of times you hear “you’re wrong” from supervisors falls off a cliff. You will never hear it from someone with more knowledge than you.

As time goes on, you only tell others they are wrong. The only time you hear it back is from subordinates. Although just like you once did with your superiors, they won’t push back as hard as they can, because you are their superior. If you both disagree, your opinion is the one that is treated as the correct once, and usually it is.

A humble person will not think of their subordinates as lessers, and will take them at their word. There is no more “superior” and “subordinate”, there is only “me” and everyone else. Where once you trusted your superiors to catch your mistakes, there is no one.

The problem is, no one will tell you this. When your idea is challenged and ultimately the conclusion is that you were right, you assume it really was because you were right. While really you might be wrong, but no one had the knowledge or confidence to disprove your idea.

This leads to a self reinforcing loop. You have an idea, usually everyone agrees straight away. Sometimes it is challenged, and again usually everyone agrees that you were right. More and more you are right, and “everyone” is wrong.

This loop can corrupt even the kindest and most rational person. They start getting irritated when their idea is challenged. Why should they explain themselves to someone? The conclusion is obvious and the outcome will be the same, whether the other person agrees or not. Under that assumption, there is no rational reason to do so. The kind person might still entertain their challenger, but they won’t really listen.

Even if they try to stay humble, to critique themselves, what will they see? For the past few years, each idea they had was agreed by all to be correct. They’ve told everyone to “Correct me if I’m wrong”, and they tried, but the conclusion was almost always that you were still correct.

What other rational conclusion is there, other than “I am never wrong”?

I think the only way to not fall into the trap of hubris, is to be aware of this phenomena. To expect it to happen to you, and when it does to actively look back on your past ideas and critique them yourself, but with the knowledge you have today. You are your last supervisor.